PASPA struck down (Murphy v. NCAA)
US Supreme Court struck down PASPA, clearing the way for state-by-state legal sports betting.
On 14 May 2018 the US Supreme Court ruled 6–3 in Murphy v. NCAA that the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) unconstitutionally 'commandeered' state legislatures. The decision struck down the 1992 federal law that had confined legal sports betting largely to Nevada. States were suddenly free to legalise and regulate sports wagering as they chose.
Writing for the majority, Justice Samuel Alito held that PASPA's ban on states 'authorising' sports gambling violated the Tenth Amendment's anticommandeering principle, because Congress cannot direct state legislatures on what laws to pass. New Jersey, which had fought the case for years under Governors Chris Christie and later Phil Murphy, prevailed against the major sports leagues and the NCAA. Within weeks states began passing sports-betting laws, and by the mid-2020s a large majority of US states offered legal sports wagering, spawning a multibillion-dollar online sportsbook industry led by operators such as FanDuel and DraftKings.
The ruling unlocked the fastest-growing regulated gambling market of the era and made the United States a central battleground for online sports betting.
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